Following a tip received by CIA in August 2010, the US intelligence community determined that Osama Bin Laden is located in Abbottabad, in North-West Pakistan, about 100 km North of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. He was found, in a “mansion” and killed with two shots (one to the head and one in the chest) by a team of 25 SEALS.

3 D map of the compound

Department of Defense Diagram of Osama bin Laden Compound in Abbottabad via New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/02/world/asia/abbottabad-map-of-where-osama-bin-laden-was-killed.html

The map below overlays Osama’s last home diagram released by the Department of Defense onto its exact location on Google Maps. Zoom in to see it in greater detail. Click “Earth” in the upper-right corner of the map to see the diagram in 3D. You might have to install the Google Earth Plugin. It takes about 30-60 seconds for the 3D model to load.

Osama Bin Laden Compound in Abbottabad reconstructed as a map for Counter Strike PC game. Shortcut to original source: http://matei.org/url/csosama

Inside the killing site of Osama bin Laden. Video

Abbottabad is a rather small (81,000 inhabitants) district capital, known for its clear air and temperate (by Pakistani standards) climate. Abbottabad is also known as a “spa” town, attracting tourists to the city since the colonial era. It is also a retirement city for senior military officials, called by the Independent “at the heart of the Pakistani military establishment.”

The compound is in the neighborhood of Kakul, not far away from a military academy.

Osama bin Laden’s Home videos show the chief terrorist living the life of an aging patriach

Bin Laden lived secluded, yet well informed through satellite TV and thumbdrives of which he had about 100 in the house. He spent a lot of time planning new attacks and was keenly interested in media coverage of his exploits. One ABC commentator, cited in the clip that follows, summarizes Osama’s predicament very well: “he was like an aging actor” watching his old movies and “imagining a come back.”

Press Briefing on the US operation

General information about the neighborhood where Osama Bin Laden’s masion is located

The location was identified after one of Osama’s courier’s was named by a Guantanamo bay terrorist detention camp inmate. The courier was then tracked to the compound in Abbottabad. The compound, 8 times greater than the surrounding buildings, stood out by its 15 feet (5m) tall walls, crowned with barbed wire. It is a relatively recent construction (2005-2006) and its value is estimated at 1 million dollars. The locals also noticed that the compound never put the garbage out, which was incinerated instead. Finally, despite its size, the mansion had no landline phone or Internet access. The details were revealed in a White House background briefing. The briefing provided these gripping details about the identification of the location and about the firefight.

What I’d like to do is walk you through the key points in that intelligence trail that led us to that conclusion. From the time that we first recognized bin Laden as a threat, the CIA gathered leads on individuals in bin Laden’s inner circle, including his personal couriers. Detainees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan.

One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.

Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.

Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. Still we were unable to pinpoint exactly where they lived, due to extensive operational security on their part. The fact that they were being so careful reinforced our belief that we were on the right track.

Then in August 2010, we found their residence, a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The area is relatively affluent, with lots of retired military. It’s also insolated from the natural disasters and terrorist attacks that have afflicted other parts of Pakistan. When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw — an extraordinarily unique compound. The compound sits on a large plot of land in an area that was relatively secluded when it was built. It is roughly eight times larger than the other homes in the area.

When the compound was built in 2005, it was on the outskirts of the town center, at the end of a narrow dirt road. In the last six years, some residential homes have been built nearby. The physical security measures of the compound are extraordinary. It has 12- to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire. Internal wall sections — internal walls sectioned off different portions of the compound to provide extra privacy. Access to the compound is restricted by two security gates

18 thoughts on “Abbottabad, the exact location of the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with American Navy Seals (Update Videos)”

HM… That corresponds to the purple pin. The location was first located on Google Map by an anonymous Internet source. I tend to give credence to either the red or the yellow pin (tack). The purple location seems to be too far. However, we just do not know for sure where it is. Come back for more details…

One more note about the compound picture in the map. The map is from 2005 and no structures should be visible at that lcoation since the compound was built after that date. Again, we need more circumspection.

“The compound marked by the green target mark is in the neighborhood of Kakul, not far away from a military academy.”

On my computer at least, it’s a purple tack not a green target mark. The purple tack is definitely hard to see. Anyway its location appears to match the one given by the previous comment above: 34.18740000, 73.24272200 .

May I suggest use the yellow pin for whatever is considered to be the primary location because yellow is so easy to see. Then use red and other colors, but not the practically invisible camouflage purple, for secondary locations.

By the way that currently-yellow-pinned compound does appear to have interior buildings closer to the configuration which one of the networks showed in a computer graphic.

But HM in the first comment above seems to be very confident it’s the currently-purple-pinned compound.

So after further investigation we finally have the correct location. But there are still a few puzzling points. One, the photos of the fire fight were looking up at a property. It seems as though the land is fairly flat. Second, the man on Twitter that tweeted about the incident was said to be 250 Meters from the property and also seemed to hear a lot of the event unfold. He lived by the Jalal Baba Auditorium (according to his twitter posts – username @reallyvirtual), which is some 4+ miles from the incident. I am just seeing a ton of discrepancies at this point.

Before becoming overly suspicious let us call these incidents the “fog of war.” In crisis situations, just like objects that we see in the car mirror, events, distances, and time seem to be closer or farther that they really are….

Notice Google has now updated the satellite photo of the bin Laden compound. In the first couple of days or so after the raid, a much earlier photo was present. One easy-to-see difference is the earlier photograph was taken before the wall was built around the west sector of the compound – you could plainly see a shadow of the wall in the main sector, but none in the west sector. Now you can see a shadow for both.